Frost Death Knight PvP Guide - Legion 7.3.5

Welcome to a Frost 死亡骑士 Arena PvP guide by Mes. In this guide, we’ll try to tackle the basics of playing a Frost 死亡骑士 by looking at strengths and weaknesses, talent choices (including honor talents), as well as explore team compositions, racial traits, and common strategies.

This PvP Guide is maintained by Method and Friends! Method is an esports organization that includes one of WoW's top guilds, MDI and PvP teams. For more PvP oriented guides written by the best arena players of their classes, check out Method's Guides on Wowhead!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Frost Death Knight Strengths

High Sustained Damage Frost offers some of the strongest sustained damage of any class. It feels bursty and needs to be immediately healed, unlike with Unholy.

Durable Against Magic Damage Dealers

The spec can be considered hard to kill by Magic damage dealers due to 反魔法护罩, 反魔法领域, and strong self-healing from 灵界打击.

Strong Offensive Cooldowns

Frost Death Knights have strong offensive cooldowns such as 冰霜之柱 and 饥饿符文武器 with the 强能符文武器 Honor Talent. These cooldowns are also very short which is very valuable.

Strong Burst Damage

Frost’s damage always feels like a threat, with strongest burst during the 冰霜之柱 and 饥饿符文武器 window. 白霜 procs massively increase the damage of 凛风冲击, 湮灭 with the 王座粉碎者 trait always hurts, and 辛达苟萨之怒 hits reasonably hard and can even kill enemies through pillars.

Frost Death Knight Weaknesses

Low Mobility With some of the lowest mobility of any melee spec, 幻影步 is our only escape inside of Arena, making it possible for us to over-extend and be kited easily. We also have a relatively long cooldown gap closer with 死亡之握.

No Mortal Strike Effect

We have no 致死之伤 style healing reduction, which limits some of our composition options.

Fragile to Frequent Melee Burst Damage

While 冰封之韧 is even more powerful for Frost 死亡骑士s because of the 寒冰之血 artifact trait, it still has a three minute cooldown which means that it does not line up with offensive cooldowns like 战吼 or 毁灭之风.

Rotation & Abilities

General Damage Dealing

Frost 死亡骑士s use Runes for basic abilities and can generate Runic Power. As a result, they tend to work off a priority system and try to balance these two core resources and adjust their rotation accordingly with procs like 白霜 and 杀戮机器.

Use 冰霜打击, and try to weave it in with other globals as much as possible to create opportunities to keep your 冰冷之爪 proc up.

If your targets are at range, use 寒冰锁链 or 凛风冲击. You usually won't need to worry about keeping up 冰霜疫病, because as a Frost 死亡骑士 in Arena, you are often being kited which forces you to use these two abilities.

Bursting as Frost

Bursting as Frost generally just involves the above priority system, but with 冰霜之柱 and 饥饿符文武器 active. If a target is expected to die in the next few globals, 湮灭 is generally your burstier global when compared to 冰霜打击 so it can be prioritized especially during 饥饿符文武器. Your artifact ability 辛达苟萨之怒 should also be used during your burst window, but it has a long cooldown so use it carefully.

Talent Build

Tier 1 - 冰冷之爪In Arena, the other two choices have relatively low value which is why 冰冷之爪 is the preferred choice. The main reason for this is low uptime and a low mastery value in PvP making 符文调谐 worse.

Tier 2 - 冰冻之雾杀戮效率 is reduced in effectiveness by poor mobility, making it difficult to continually get value from auto attacks proccing 杀戮机器. 冰冻之雾 also adds burst to 白霜, making it significantly better.

Tier 3 - 雪崩冰盖 would be the better talent in this row, but because of the 强能符文武器 and 饥饿符文武器 talents, we cannot take 冰盖. Otherwise, 饥饿符文武器 would not line up with the 冰霜之柱 cooldown.

Tier 4 - 致盲冰雨 or 凛冬将至Talents in this row should be picked based on the comp that you are running. In comps played with a Windwalker or any spec that brings a lot of stuns, 致盲冰雨 is the better talent. If playing with a DPS class that does not bring stuns such as a Balance Druid or a Destro Warlock, 凛冬将至 is significantly better. To take full advantage of this talent, it is possible to stun several targets by stacking up on one and moving to another while taking advantage of 风暴汇聚 to keep 冷酷严冬 rolling.

Tier 5 - 酷寒突袭 or 不稳定的护盾Talents in this row should be picked based on your opponent. If you are playing against double caster comps, 不稳定的护盾 can be used defensively to survive huge hits. Alternatively, 酷寒突袭 can be used when resetting behind a pillar, or for example, while chasing down an Arcane Mage.

Tier 6 - 风暴汇聚This talent makes 冷酷严冬 a powerful mini cooldown, and keeping 冷酷严冬 up as long as possible during 冰霜之柱 is particularly important for your burst.

Tier 7 - 饥饿符文武器This talent improves your burst in Arena and lines up with 冰霜之柱 when we take 强能符文武器. You should almost always take this talent.

PvP Talent Build

Tier 1 - 角斗士勋章Generally this talent is advisable unless you have a specific need for 适者生存, though these situations are very rare. 冷酷追杀 can also be taken, but generally only if playing as an Orc with the 坚韧 passive.

Tier 2 - 强化护甲This talent should almost always be taken. It increases the DK's health by 10%, which also indirectly increases 灵界打击 healing.

Tier 3 - 反魔法领域 or 黑暗模拟In the majority of 3v3 matchups, 反魔法领域 is preferable as it lines up with strong enemy cooldowns like 冰冷血脉 and Moonkin's 化身, and is useful when combined with other cooldowns for abilities like 风暴守护者 and 奥术强化. Typically, 反魔法领域 is strongest when used on a teammate in crowd control to save them, such as on a healer when they are in a 肾击.

黑暗模拟 can also be taken against teams that do low magic damage, or most of the time in the 2v2 Arena bracket. This can be very powerful for stealing defensive cooldowns such as 大地之盾, 痛苦压制, or 牺牲祝福. It can also steal immunities like 寒冰屏障 or 圣盾术, as well as steal crowd control such as 变形术, 恐惧, and 心灵尖啸.Stealing crucial crowd control or defensive cooldowns may win a game, but it requires the enemy to not notice your 黑暗模拟 and for you to time it well. This is risky is in comparison to 反魔法领域, which your teammates can depend on.

Tier 4 - 腐烂光环, 抑心光环, or 死灵光环Take 腐烂光环 when playing with physical DPS classes, and take 死灵光环 when playing with spell damage DPS classes, or in 2v2. If you are struggling to survive or need to reduce a specific cooldown like 闪现术, consider 抑心光环 as it is the only aura that can offer you defense.

Tier 5 - 严寒中心 or 神智不清Your default choice should be 严寒中心, as with many comps it adds synergy with 死亡之握 into AoE stuns like 扫堂腿 while they are held in place by 严寒中心.

Against classes like Mages, 神智不清 significantly increases the cooldown of their escape abilities like 闪现术, which gives you and your teammates significantly more uptime.

Tier 6 - 强能符文武器This talent is too good to pass up as it makes our 符文武器增效 line up perfectly with 冰霜之柱. The 饥饿符文武器 talent also improves this ability.

Race Choices

HumanHumans are generally considered to be the strongest Alliance race because of the 自利 racial, as well as 人类精魂. 自利 allows the 死亡骑士 to have an extra stun removal cooldown. 人类精魂 gives a boost to secondary stats on your template. 角斗士勋章 has both offensive and defensive uses, as it can be used to survive enemy cooldowns when combined with 灵界打击 and 反魔法护罩, or to escape 烟雾弹. Offensively, it can also be used to trinket abilities such as 肾击 and 风暴之锤 to attempt to land a kill on an enemy.

Blood ElfCurrently, on the Horde side, Blood Elf is one of the more common racial choices. This is primarily because of the 奥术洪流 passive, which allows the 死亡骑士 to silence enemies around the 死亡骑士 for two seconds on a relatively short cooldown. This is important, as in Legion, 死亡骑士s lost the 窒息 ability which means that we no longer have a silence as a part of our crowd control chains on enemies. This racial adds a huge amount of offense by extending our chain, or it can be used to pause casting through abilities such as 神恩术 or 虚空守卫. Blood Elves also take slightly less Arcane damage and gain 1% additional critical strike chance.

OrcOrcs bring a combination of defense and offense through the 坚韧 passive, which significantly reduces the duration of stuns. This can allow the Death Knight to play the 冷酷追杀 talent, which greatly reduces the ability of enemies to deny defensive cooldowns like 反魔法护罩 through stun abilities, and can be extremely good at reducing the damage output from specs such as Subtlety Rogues. 坚韧 also allows the 死亡骑士 to get out of stuns sooner, which is also good offensively as they are peeled for less time. Additionally, 血性狂怒 is another Orc-based racial that provides a short-term boost to attack power on a long cooldown.

Other RacesOther races also bring something unique to the table and while they may be useful situationally, generally speaking being either Orc, Human, or Blood Elf is a better choice for the reasons mentioned above.

Dwarf brings 石像形态, which clears most debuffs (including bleeds) and reduces damage taken for a short duration. This can be very useful against Feral Druids and Assassination Rogues during 宿敌 and 阿莎曼的狂乱. Feral Druids often lose 割裂 and 斜掠 which forces them to re-apply these bleeds instead of using 凶猛撕咬.

Draenei brings 纳鲁的赐福, which is a moderate heal over time effect that can be cast on you or a teammate and has a moderate cooldown.

Undead brings 被遗忘者的意志, which removes 恐惧 and Charm effects on a two minute cooldown (and triggers a 30 second cooldown with 角斗士勋章).

Goblin and Worgen offer mobility through 火箭跳 and 疾步夜行, which can be used as gap closers or escapes.

Troll brings 狂暴, a short duration haste buff on a long cooldown, as well as 巫毒步 which reduces the duration of snares.

Situationally these races could all be optimal, but in general, I would recommend Orc, Human, or Blood Elf.

Strong Arena Compositions

2v2

Frost 死亡骑士/Holy 圣骑士This is probably the most popular Frost 死亡骑士 2v2 composition. The Holy 圣骑士 will generally take 复仇十字军, and the 死亡骑士 will always take 凛冬将至 and 死灵光环. The game plan is likely to revolve around killing a healer inside of a 制裁之锤 into 凛冬将至 stun, with 冰霜之柱 and 饥饿符文武器 active.It’s also possible to a kill a DPS target with 制裁之锤 into 忏悔 or 盲目之光, also with 冰霜之柱 and 盲目之光 active. Having the 圣骑士 not specced into 制裁之拳 actually synergizes nicely with Frost 死亡骑士s, as 制裁之锤 is a one minute cooldown baseline which lines up with 冰霜之柱.

Frost 死亡骑士/Restoration 萨满祭司With a Restoration 萨满祭司 this comp plays differently, but does extremely well playing hyper-aggressive into many Restoration Druid teams. Restoration 萨满祭司s still bring 妖术 as a crowd control and if specced into 电能图腾, they also bring a stun. Always spec 凛冬将至 and 死灵光环 unless playing 神智不清, in which case 抑心光环 may be preferable.Kill targets can definitely be DPS with 妖术 and 电能图腾, but without instant crowd control for healers, this will be harder to land. Healers can also be targeted with 电能图腾 and 凛冬将至 during 冰霜之柱. 通电 should usually be taken by the Restoration 萨满祭司 to assist with pressure.

Frost 死亡骑士/Mistweaver 武僧The 武僧 should generally play 仙鹤之道 so that they can assist with burst damage, and 扫堂腿 to bring a stun. The Frost 死亡骑士 should play 凛冬将至. DPS targets are viable with 分筋错骨 onto healers into 扫堂腿. Healers can also be killed with 扫堂腿 and 仙鹤之道 into 凛冬将至, with 冰霜之柱 active.

3v3

Frost 死亡骑士/Windwalker 武僧/Restoration 萨满祭司In 7.3.5, 'Walking Dead' cleave (or WWDK) is the most popular comp at higher ratings for Frost 死亡骑士s. Talent into 致盲冰雨, 反魔法领域, and 腐烂光环. One of the important aspects of WWDK is to use 死亡之握 to position enemies in the radius to the Windwalker 武僧s 扫堂腿 or 怒雷破 stun effects. A grip into 致盲冰雨 can help set up 扫堂腿 for the Windwalker 武僧, ideally followed up with 怒雷破 into 奥术洪流. The Restoration 萨满祭司 can also contribute to kills with 风剪 and 净化术 with 通电. In terms of target choice you have many options, as 扫堂腿 with 死亡之握 is a short cooldown and enemies have a hard time rotating defensive cooldowns through this burst.

Frost 死亡骑士/Destruction 术士/Holy 圣骑士The Destruction 术士 can play 聚焦混乱 with 忏悔 on the 圣骑士, or alternatively 火葬. The 死亡骑士 should talent into 反魔法领域, 死灵光环, and 凛冬将至. An offensive push would start with 死亡缠绕 on both DPS targets while the 圣骑士 pushes for 制裁之锤 into 忏悔 on the healer, and the 死亡骑士 uses 冰霜之柱 and 凛冬将至 on the DPS targets to buy the 术士 time to get a 混乱之箭 cast off. Ideally, the 术士 can then follow up the 忏悔 with a 恐惧. Healers can also easily die in a 死亡之握 from the 死亡骑士 into a 制裁之锤 and 凛冬将至 combo during 冰霜之柱, followed by 死亡缠绕 and 奥术洪流.

Frost 死亡骑士/Havoc 恶魔猎手/Restoration 萨满祭司This composition plays especially well into Holy 圣骑士 teams, but the flexibility of 混乱之刃, 邪能弹幕, and 魔化 allows this composition to play in different ways. The 死亡骑士 in this composition can either play 凛冬将至 to follow up a 混乱新星, or 致盲冰雨 to have as a peel or follow up crowd control on the enemy healer to 禁锢. In general, your strategy should be to 死亡之握 a target onto another to stack them for 混乱新星. Against Mages, 混乱之刃 can be extremely powerful with 神智不清.Against Cleaves, double or triple 混乱新星 into 邪能弹幕 during 冰霜之柱 can generate huge pressure. Into Holy 圣骑士s, 混乱之刃 and 冰霜之柱 can get a kill extremely quickly. 魔化 can also enable the comp to be very durable when combined with 灵界打击 healing and the 死亡骑士's Anti-Magic defensive cooldowns like 反魔法护罩 and 反魔法领域. These cooldowns can then also make the 恶魔猎手 and 死亡骑士 even more durable with 反转魔法 and 幻影打击. The main drawback of this comp is the lack of a Mortal Strike effect, and the fact that 混乱新星 can be dispelled.

Frost 死亡骑士/Arms 战士/HealerThis is a slight twist on the popular ‘TSG’ comp for 死亡骑士s. With Frost, this comp loses some of its flexibility and tankiness, shifting from an outlast and out-damage composition to one that can kill quickly. As a result, while all healers can work, generally you see this played with Holy 圣骑士s having 忏悔, 盲目之光, and 制裁之锤 to finish games quickly. This comp can definitely rush down both healers and DPS depending on the healer type.

Positioning

One of the main drawbacks of 死亡骑士s is the lack of mobility, which can make Arena positioning tricky. We have 幻影步 on a 45 second cooldown - and that’s all. This means that in order to survive, you need to rely on chaining cooldowns with your healer and taking advantage of abilities like 驭风而行 or 自由祝福. In general, whenever your main defensives are on cooldown (such as 反魔法护罩, 冰封之韧, and 反魔法领域) and you feel like you may be a target, you should be communicating with your healer about whether they feel like they can save you. If your healer is out of strong defensive cooldowns too, or you aren’t ahead offensively, then it’s probably time to slowly make your way to a pillar and wait. As Frost, your 冰封之韧 is your last line of defence - but it is also an enormous defensive cooldown because of 寒冰之血. This means that when 冰封之韧 is on cooldown, you should definitely consider that you are significantly easier to kill when positioning offensively.

At some point, you will likely need to overextend to finish a match. A lot of the comps that run 死亡骑士s, with the exception of 术士/死亡骑士, have win conditions that involve pushing for a kill and sacrificing defensives. The most important thing is to make sure your healer is aware of where you stand defensively and understand their situation in terms of cooldowns.

Situations that you might want to push out and position offensively might include:

Your offensive cooldowns like 冰霜之柱, 饥饿符文武器, and 辛达苟萨之怒 are available and the enemy healer has not been stunned recently (is not on Stun DR).

Your teammates' offensive cooldowns are available like 屏气凝神, 风火雷电, 轮回之触.

In order to close out a match, you are often forced to commit to a kill by ‘going all in’. Sometimes this can mean forcing a match to end - win or lose. These situations might include:

The enemy healer has used their trinket, and you have cooldowns like 冰霜之柱, while your teammates also have strong offensive cooldowns like 轮回之触.

Defensive Play

反魔法领域, which is a very strong 10 second reduction to most non-physical damage, which can be thrown anywhere within 30 yards of the DK.

冰封之韧, which breaks stuns and provides immunity to stuns for the duration as well as providing decent damage reduction - but on a very long cooldown. This is your biggest defensive cooldown as Frost because of the 寒冰之血 trait which increases 死亡打击 healing for its duration by 400%.

If there is one thing that you should take away from this guide, it’s that defensives need to be communicated constantly with your healer. 死亡骑士 defensives often won’t rotate perfectly - 反魔法领域 doesn’t line up with many of the popular offensive cooldowns like 宿敌 or 奥术强化, but it does line up with 冰冷血脉. 冰封之韧 doesn’t line up with many cooldowns, as it is a three minute cooldown and generally only lines up with 化身 for Feral Druids.

反魔法护罩 is both an offensive and defensive cooldown because in addition to its absorption effect, it also makes you immune to effects like 变形术, 妖术, 旋风, and 制裁之锤 for the duration. When committing to a kill offensively, using 反魔法护罩 can potentially win you a game - but without proper communication can just as easily lose you a game.

Peeling For Your Team

The utility of 寒冰锁链, 死亡之握, 致盲冰雨, and 凛冬将至 should not be undervalued. Even though 寒冰锁链 has been nerfed significantly from a 70% slow to a 50% slow, it has a huge range which can be very helpful in keeping your enemies at bay while you cross the map with 驭风而行, or get distance with 幻影步.

死亡之握 is a very powerful peel after 暗影步 from an Assassination Rogue, or after 英勇飞跃 from a 战士. It can also be used to peel as your teammate moves around a pillar to prevent the use of gap closers like 暗影步 or 冲锋.

致盲冰雨 can also be a powerful peel, especially when used on stacked enemies during a stun effect on a teammate like 肾击. 凛冬将至 has similar defensive utility and can be spread to multiple enemies through the 风暴汇聚 talent, which can allow 冷酷严冬 to last a very long time.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The biggest mistake by far is to play too aggressively as Frost. While going ‘all-in’ at the start of a game is an entirely viable strategy, it is very easy to position poorly and be forced to over-use cooldowns early, often putting you in a spot where you are forced to commit to a kill sooner than you would otherwise have to. Frost can definitely trade small offensive pushes with 冰霜之柱 and 死亡之握 with stun cooldowns from teammates in exchange for enemy defensive cooldowns like 星界转移, and then commit with defensive cooldowns available later.

Keep in mind that it is always viable to position defensively on pillars. This can help you stack enemies who may push too aggressively on you, which opens you up to 死亡之握 them behind the pillar, or to stack the healer on top of the enemy DPS.

Communicate with your healer on the use of 反魔法护罩. This cooldown can make you difficult to kill, but it’s also one of your best ways of avoiding incoming crowd control like 变形术, 恐惧, or 旋风. It is very tempting to use it offensively, and it can be done in spots where you feel that you are not a target. Keep in mind that after using 反魔法护罩, you are very vulnerable to magic damage when stuck in the open.

With Frost, your most important cooldown by far is 冰封之韧 because of the 寒冰之血 trait, which means that you can heal to almost full health with a single 灵界打击. It is extremely important to communicate well and try as hard as possible to never overlap this cooldown, as with a three minute cooldown, it rarely rotates well. Think of 冰封之韧 as a 圣骑士 would 圣盾术, occasionally you can use it offensively to break a stun effect, but only if you are certain you can finish the game with it.

Stats and Gear

In Legion, stats and gear are simply a matter of item level because of the Principles of War buff, which assigns stats to your character based on a preset template for each specialization. This means that in PvP, the only thing that should matter is the item level of each piece of gear - the higher, the better. Every 10 item levels will increase your characters templated stats by 1%.

About the Author

Mes has achieved Rank 1 on 死亡骑士 12 times, and Gladiator on 死亡骑士 every season. He streams regularly on Twitch.tv and can be found on Twitter.